Student rezoning discussion begins

Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 07:40 PM.

He said as the population in public noncharter schools continues to decrease, decreasing the number of traditional public schools has to be an option.

Husfelt said he believed the most efficient option, budget wise, is the option that ensures growth can be handled if it comes.

“The one (option) where we would have the most empty seats available (in one school) available for growth,” Husfelt said. “That to me, currently would be moving the elementary students from Bozeman, and taking the elementary school away and rezoning those kids to kids to Southport and Deer Point.”

Husfelt said closing Southport would save more money, but there would be no room for growth. One member of the audience asked why that was a concern if so many students were entering charter schools.

If Bozeman was closed, the capacity of Southport and Deer Point would be 1,425 with 318 empty seats for growth; if Southport is closed, the capacity would be 1,251 and empty seats would total 144, according to information from the district.

Husfelt said one suggestion, closing Deer Point, is not an option because the school is still bonded, being paid for, and part of the bonding agreement requires the building be used as a school during the bond.

Board member Ryan Neves asked Husfelt for more numbers; he said if the district simply rezones and does not close any schools, there will be no cost saving.

PANAMA CITY — The first public workshop to discuss possible rezoning of students brought dozens of community members together Tuesday morning.

Superintendent Bill Husfelt went through facts affecting the situation such as charter school growth, beach population growth and underpopulated elementary schools in the northern section of Bay County. He said this discussion is based on being fiscally responsible as a district and the fact that rezoning needs to be done because certain parts of the district have no room to grow.

“Fiscal responsibility is are we using our resources to the optimum, to their best, are we being efficient,” Husfelt said. “I believe it’s our responsibility to use the taxpayers’ dollars to be the most efficient we can and that’s part of what this argument is about.”

Concerned parents and community members were on hand to ask questions and propose suggestions such as combining Southport Elementary and Deer Point Elementary instead of considering closing the elementary portion of the Deane Bozeman School, a kindergarten through 12th-grade school.

Other cost-related questions included whether classrooms would need retrofitting at Bozeman if it were closed; Husfelt said the small restrooms in each classroom could be locked because middle and high school age students don’t need a bathroom in each class and he didn’t believe any retrofitting would be needed.

Discussions also included the decrease in the number of students in traditional public schools in the district.

“The population is out of whack in the northern part of the county and we’re trying to be as responsible as we can with the schools we have in that area,” Husfelt said. “We’re not blaming charter schools, it’s just a fact. The reality is the population of the public noncharter schools is going down.”

He said as the population in public noncharter schools continues to decrease, decreasing the number of traditional public schools has to be an option.

Husfelt said he believed the most efficient option, budget wise, is the option that ensures growth can be handled if it comes.

“The one (option) where we would have the most empty seats available (in one school) available for growth,” Husfelt said. “That to me, currently would be moving the elementary students from Bozeman, and taking the elementary school away and rezoning those kids to kids to Southport and Deer Point.”

Husfelt said closing Southport would save more money, but there would be no room for growth. One member of the audience asked why that was a concern if so many students were entering charter schools.

If Bozeman was closed, the capacity of Southport and Deer Point would be 1,425 with 318 empty seats for growth; if Southport is closed, the capacity would be 1,251 and empty seats would total 144, according to information from the district.

Husfelt said one suggestion, closing Deer Point, is not an option because the school is still bonded, being paid for, and part of the bonding agreement requires the building be used as a school during the bond.

Board member Ryan Neves asked Husfelt for more numbers; he said if the district simply rezones and does not close any schools, there will be no cost saving.

“There’s no finite dollar savings by rezoning, we’re just swapping sheep,” Neves said. “If we’re going to make this big of a change, we need to do something that’s an efficient use of our schools, that puts more bodies in seats at the individual schools and close the waste out. That would be closing out a school site or a partial school site.”

Desi Rae Weston, mother of two current Bay District students and two future students, said she does not believe closing Bozeman should not be an option.

“It seems to me that combining Deer Point and Southport makes more sense than closing down Deane Bozeman financially and for capacity at Deer Point,” Weston said. “They have the school there they can’t get rid of because it’s bonded.”

She said her children have been shipped around a lot before because of the military and having her children go to a K-12 school, the only one in the district, is appealing to her and them.

“They’re with their cousins, their family and it’s stable and steady,” Weston said. “There is no reason for them to be shipped around like we have been with the military and everything else we’ve done. I really like that’s it’s K-12.”

Husfelt said now, board members will talk to staff and gather more information and he will make a recommendation to the board on Feb. 12, not for a vote, but for the next step in the process; at that point, the time and location of the next meeting will be decided. He did say that meeting would be a night meeting for parents or anyone else to talk to the board.

Husfelt said the beach population has the opposite problem; the population is booming and he said although growth is good, the problem is what to do next.

“West Bay is obviously an area we want to grow, it’s not growing yet, but we think it’s very close,” Husfelt said. “We know at Breakfast Point Academy, we’re going to have two options. Either tell students they can’t go to school there and force the middle school parents to choose to go to Surfside or one of the other schools or bring in modulars.”